Excellent sound. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Blows away the Mackie mixer it replaced. With the Mackie we were always fighting background noise; the hiss was terrible. The Yamaha is absolutely silent. Don't let anyone trick you into believing the old line about Mackie's mic preamps being "better"... they're inferior. After using the Yamaha, I'll never consider, let alone buy, another Mackie mixer.

Nice mix of features. Dual FX is nice, though not all effects are duplicated on both channels so you can't always run two channels of a given effect. Hard to argue at this price!

If there's a quality flaw, I have yet to find it. Three separate people have been mixing on this board now and each of us has to wipe the drool marks off when we're done. It's just a joy to use.

Absolutely worth it. Best value in a 32 input mixer on the market today, and I've looked at everything. Don't let the low price fool you... the electronics and sound on this mixer seem like they ought to cost 2-3X the price - but I'm glad they don't!

Nothing has gone wrong, so no experience for this mixer.

It's not sexy, but it's not meant to be. A mixer is supposed to be a straight noiseless connection between other components. That's exactly what this mixer is. We couldn't be happier. If it died tomorrow we'd replace it with another exactly like it.

Electronic Engineer, Audio Engineer

All

The sound is smooth, warm, and distortion free. I've run an entire 5-piece band with 5 vocals through it without problems. The EFX are excellent, as to be expected by the use of two SPX chips. Is this the best mixer ever made? No, but I haven't seen anything in its price range (or $400-500 more) that beats it.

I like the 6 aux sends (although all six cannot be used on one channel). We use four of them to give each band member their own stage mix, and another one to send the vocals to a compressor. Separate phantom power for each bank of 8 mics is nice. It's pretty rare to find a situation where sending phantom power to a device hurts, but I HAVE come across it a couple of times. And of course, having two high-quality EFX processors onboard saves cabling over to a rack for delay and reverb. If this mixer had a built-in compressor and a 9-band EQ, it would have everything a gigging band could want!

Features and functions are well placed, but with this much complexity, it's got a little bit of learning curve. The second set of VU meters is a nice touch: sending say, the vocals to the PFL/AFL side allows monitoring their level, while keeping the main level separate.

Seems rugged enough. I've been using it for a couple of years without incident. We don't carry a backup.

For an under-$2K mixer, this is about as good as it gets. I did a lot of research before buying the Yamaha. I didn't find anything better in the price range.

Never needed support.

Sorry -- this is a DUMB category for a mixer!

Active Musician

Rock, Alternative, R&B

I do sound at a small club in Buffalo, NY. We don't have a lot of money and we needed a new board to replace our Mackie SR24.4 PRO. This board seemed to fit the bill. The difference in sound quality was noticed immediately.

The dual SPX effects engines are great. Most of the time people just want a little reverb or some delay and the on board effects do an amazing job.

Just like any other board in this price range. Very straight forward.

Built very well...no problems. It would have been nice to have those little dust blockers on the faders though.

Amazing value. You get a great sounding board with 24 XLR inputs, 6 auxs, and two built in effects engines (which we use a lot).

live sound engineer

everything

Overall good sounding board. I'm use to mixing on higher end boards so the one sweepable mid frequency was a bit of a bummer, but it works just fine.

the reverbs and delay that come on the board are actually very usable. plenty of auxes and group options for a board of this size and price point. one thing that i dont like tis having all the outs except for left and right main out in 1/4 inch. I like to run xlr for everything. not that big of a deal though.

it's an analogue board. if you know how to use a board you will most definitely know how to use this one. built in effects add to the ease of setup if you don't want to carry an effects rack. pretty light. could be used as part of a portable pa if need be. no external power supply so one less thing to rack up and carry around.

good quality. i used it in a club for well over a year. it was used when it was put in there and routinely took splashes of beer or other liquids from the not so smart bar staff. cleaned the faders and back to working normal.

great value. i'd choose this over a mackie any day of the week. and i own two mackies.

i'd like to get one to use for smaller gigs so i dont have to break out the old allen and heath gl4 or the dying soundcraft that is somehow still alive.

live sound engineer

all

I have not used this for any other musical application except musicals and drama's, except once when there was a vocal and acoustic guitar duo, in which case it performed beautifully. In the case of theatre, our school ordered really crappy microphones, and this board made them sound pretty sweet. The good mics they ordered sounded great, and I look forward to using the board again for the next shows.

Giving it a 9 for good and slightly less good reasons. For the good, our school received this along with our entire new PA system, (mostly Yamaha, great system) three days before the drama premiered. Now, with some other systems this may not have been possible to pull together, but after a couple days of tweaking the EQ for the shady mics, it started to come together. The only problem was I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the effects worked, but I will try more this year.

The EQ is very easy to work with. What I usually do is listen to the mic flat, then twist each knob slightly more dramatically then how it would be, to locate the necessary frequencies that need tweaking. The ability to choose a mid frequency on the mono channels is wonderful, and the stereo EQ is good for pre-recorded music. It was the first board I'd worked on and I had 3 days to learn how to use it, so I feel it's pretty straight forward.

It's taken some unfortunate abuse from some DJ's who thought they knew how to run live sound, and it withstood spectacularly. It just looks marvelous which adds to its great sound. No worries about it breaking, tho we do have a back-up from the old system. I think with a proper road case, this could be used on tour. I think this will certainly last all 4 years of my high school career and into the future when I pass the torch onto the next "soundman".

Compared to other boards prices and features, I feel this board is really a bargain. It is definitely a high quality board, and I'm glad my school purchased it to compliment their new system.

Was never necessary. Good manual. Good equipment, no need for support.

It is a sexy piece of machinery.

Active Musician, Sound Technician, Live & Recording Engineer

Just about everything except new hip hop

I'm in the market for a light-duty B-rig for non-rider shows, and the sound of this mixer made me soil my shorts. Why 8/10? It's incredible for the money, but there are better sounding consoles, just not for less than at least 4x the price. I'm convinced this board had a cleaner and warmer sound than an A&H GL2200, which are notoriously thin, but still a rider-kosher industry standard. On my scale Mackie SR32's score a 6, Soundcraft LX7's score a 4.

Here lies my biggest issue with this board, and virtually every other one with built-in effects: GIVE THE FREAKIN EFFECTS A FULL STRIP EACH FFS!!! Especially with a dual effects unit like this. Want reverb on the delays? You're stuck using an outboard delay unit. Want EQ on the reverb? You're stuck using an outboard reverb unit. I won't mix without being able to use delays to selectively thicken the reverb, and won't use reverb without EQ'ing it for the content and environment. So either I pay for effects I won't use, or I void the warranty modifying the routing. This comes so close to providing the exact bare effects I need (basic reverb + tap delay), but not quite. What a tease!! It's also pretty tricky to balance/distinguish 24 different sound sources without two swept mids, but that's a sacrifice I would make for the sake of the sound quality for the price. But the good stuff is GREAT. This is a great-sounding quasi-8-Aux console! FX1 and 2 are assignable to TRS outputs, and all aux's are assignable as post-fader, so if there's a monitor board, you're in flavor country for effects. Great for aux-fed subs too. OOH! I just noticed Early Reflections as an option for FX2... I use that a lot in the studio, gonna play with that at my next live show.

The 60mm faders are short, but it's a fair trade for portability and price. The afore-mentioned bonehead design flaw of the built-in effects makes things interesting. I don't deduct for the lack of 2nd swept mid EQ since the sound quality makes EQ less necessary.

I'm guessing here, based on Yamaha's track record.

If it's great sound you need with adequate versatility, you can't beat this board. It's the only console anywhere near the Behringer-Mackie range with noticeably good sound. I've tried other mixers in this line and the sonic benefits are not limited to the larger models, the 10/2 sounds great too. This console is half the cost of a 24-channel Soundcraft LX7 which offers the 2nd swept mid EQ but sounds even worse than Behringers, has poor build quality, and has no built-in effects or even pads!

Again, guessing based on track record.

No small music venue should use any other mixer but an MG-series suited to their needs. I just hope they answer the clue phone and change the moronic effects routing. I'm very seriously considering modifying the routing when I get mine and kissing the warranty goodbye. Hopefully it can be done in a reverseable manner that won't leave any clues. Tapping them just ahead of the fader and routing them to the nearby stereo line strips would put the features and ease of use ratings up to 9.

house/touring sound tech, live/studio recording engineer, producer

anything but rap/techno

At the price - nice pice of gear. I run a live radio show as an o/b so we have two of these darlin's - one for the house and the other for the broadcast. All engine running - All of the outs are taken up with sound for the video recording, audio cd, cctv repeaters in he building and a live web-cast. The two units are linked so that the 'braodcast' tech. can que and talk-back through the monitors run off the 'house' board, (and a few other party tricks) Just pensioned off an old Mackie from the same spot and find the Yam. just a tad better to integrate into the system.

Actually - I guessed because I have never needed to use support systems.

I would use another one although there are other better units out there at a lot more cash.

Tech. opperator, radio.

For the price it's very strong although I'd like it to have a little more punch. (but that could be due to my ancient speakers) It has so much more control than my previous board it's unreal.

Again it's real nice for the price. There are some options that usually aren't in a board at this price point.

Pretty straight foreward.

Good quality for the most part. Sliders have a little bit of a cheaper feel to them, but not bad. Wish sliders had rubber sheild in the slots but hey, can't have everything.

For the price you can't beat it! I know you can spend more on whatever brand you happen to be married to, but if you want a 32 channel mixer in this price range, this is the one for you.

Haven't used it yet, but have dealt with them in the past.

32 channels with effects...more money in my pocket...now I can take the wife out on the town and have my toys too. Life is good.

Very clean, we can finally hear each other in the monitor mix on stage. Totally outclasses our previous mixer for transparency, detail, features and natural sound. Not tipped up or bright sounding, not muddy at all. Great preamps for voice and acoustic instruments.

What more could jam on this board? Dual effects are icing on the cake.

Appears well put together and sturdy, audio performance is very, very good.

Lots of goodies and great performance for the price.

Haven't needed it yet.

Transparent board, great sounding mic preamps! I love this board. For the money and the quality, it blows away Mackie. Check this board out AFTER you fool with an over priced less featured Mackie. It even appears to have a stereo sub out, so you could possibly do 5.1 mixing live.. What more could you ask for? A 4 band eq. Thats about it...

This thing rocks, it could have a little better sounding distortion on the effects, but hey, it has dual dsp effects! Who's complaining??

Excellent fit & finish

Compare it to a Behringer... Completely outclasses it. Compare it to a much higher priced Mackie and it has more features for less money..Read ALL the specs on this one.. Its amazing for its price...

Never dealt with, new product, but I'm sure Yamaha stands by its own.

Could be a little cooler looking, more high tech, but what do you want for 1099.00??? Smokes the competition...